Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1887-03-12

Climate and Agriculture.

Every one understands that climate has
great influence upon the results OF agrl-
culture, but not all realize how great an
influence agriculture may exert upon the
climate of a country. Mr.. VIM. w. Bart
lett of Newbury gave an exhaustive paper
on this subject at the country meeting OF
the Massachusetts board OF agriculture,
showing an extended acquaintance with
the history of our so-called civilization,
a civilization that has caused the death of
great cities bv cropping adjacent agricul-
tural lands to condition of barrenness.
Even in our State may be found lands that
have been cropped with rye, and nothing
carried back to the soil, till rye would no
longer grow and the land was reduced to
blowing sand. 1t is written that the
Heavenly Father sends rain upon the just
and the unjust alike, but we see daily evil
dences that the rain does the soil good ac-
cording as that soil is treated at the hands
of man. If we cut the wood from OFT the
hill sides, burn the brush and the soil, the
water that falls fails to moisten the earth,
but runs off directly to the sea carrying
perhaps what little soil is left in its course.
Man can spoil much of natures work as
shown in the treeless prairies where Tor
centuries fires have been allowed to run
their devastating course every returning
autumn : Man can also do much to assist
nature to re-clothe the earth with verdure.
The rain belt in Kansas is said to be NOV
ing westward across the arid regions as
man introduces the plough and the corn
planter and sets out trees to conserve
moisture. American farmers are on
the wrong track when they strive to de-
plete their lands by sending grain
to Europe. We are paying too
great a tribute to other countries in
this way, but not as much as we give to
the rivers and the sea by our wasteful sys
TENS of sewage. Not one-fourth the
wheat raised gets back to the sell. The
tobacco raised at such a cost of fertility is
wasted in ashes, and the corn whiskey is
worse than wasted. China has learned to
keep her soil productive by saving and ap
plying manures. England has moist eli
mate, but her stronghold is from the food
and fertilizers she imports from other
countries. Japan law requires the setting
of two trees to every one that is cut. Had
China and Japan followed our system of
soil depletion they would have been ex-
hausted long ago
Mr.. Bartlett thinks we should tax ex-
ports of food rather than try to extend
their expectation. He does not believe
that droughts were more severe in the days
of the pilgrim fathers than now. They
came from moist climate and the con-
trast struck them very torcibly. They
ploughed shallow and thus exposed their
crops to the effects of drought more than
do the thorough cultivators of the present
day. The pilgrims were also believers in
divine dispensations and attributed their
ills or successes to special providences,
and so had their frequent days of fasting
or of thanksgiving In the soiling sys-
tenn, the growing of ensilage crops, the
better cultivation of the best lands for the
production of food, and the use of the
rougher lands for growing forest trees are
the chief methods by which man will be
able to improve the climatic and other
conditions of our country so as to make it
more desirable as place for the homes
OF our chidren.-New England Farmer.